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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679898">While You Were Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayhitoforever/pseuds/sayhitoforever'>sayhitoforever</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In Every Universe [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bleach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Worship, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, canon compliant/adjacent, i guess, mostly soft bois, scars and stories and FEELINGS, the angsty sorta fluff you didn't ask for</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:53:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,585</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayhitoforever/pseuds/sayhitoforever</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichigo makes up for lost time. Scars, after all, are just another kind of memory.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In Every Universe [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832818</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>176</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>While You Were Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Let it be known that I'm capable of mild fluff.</p><p>Thanks for reading! 🖤</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ichigo is lying half on top of Grimmjow, the blankets of his bed kicked down around their feet. Rain patters softly against his bedroom window, a steady white noise, and Grimmjow is staring out it, watching raindrops race down the glass. Free hand having been rubbing gentle circles just above his Hollow hole, the other trapped and going numb under the pillow, Ichigo lifts his head a little to say something. But in the soft grey light of the thunderstorm, the scar tissue that rings the left side of Grimmjow’s neck like a crescent moon catches his eyes. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but the stormy light is casting a silvery sort of iridescence on it, almost making it glow.</p><p>He moves his hand up from Grimmjow’s chest to his neck and traces the slightly raised inner edge of the scar with his little finger. Grimmjow stays still, a true testament to just how far they’d come in whatever it was they were doing together. In fact, his hand that had been pressed against his lower back rather possessively was beginning to lose it’s pressure, as though Grimmjow was dozing off. It made Ichigo smile into the shoulder beneath him, remembering how Urahara had reacted to the whole situation.</p><p>
  <em>“I’ve dedicated my whole existence to studying Shinigami and Hollows and everything in between, with a particular interest in the rarity that are Arrancar, and here you have one just crawling into bed with you at night.”</em>
</p><p>“Sometimes…” Ichigo begins to whisper, swooping along the curve of his neck to his collarbones before following the jagged line back up. “Sometimes I can’t believe that I watched this happen. That he was even able to do this much damage.” </p><p>“Yeah, well, I was pretty beat to shit at the time.” The ghost of a smile plucks at the bare-cheeked corner of Grimmjow’s mouth as Ichigo sneaks a glance up at him. His hair is a blue halo around his head, smooshed flat against the pillow, a mussed tuft it at the top of his head standing up from Ichigo’s fingers.</p><p>“You have a lot of scars,” Ichigo announces as though he’s just made a groundbreaking discovery. The side-eye Grimmjow gives him reaffirms that he’s really just stated the obvious.</p><p>“Not all of us have busty friends with powers that defy the fuckin’ laws of space and time to patch us up on demand,” he comments a little haughtily, but Ichigo is undeterred.</p><p>“Will you tell me about them?” Ichigo asks as he sits up a little, pulling his totally numb arm out from under Grimmjow’s neck.</p><p>“Why d’ya wanna know?” Grimmjow replies slowly, readjusting his head with an irritated downturn to his lips that says he’s not happy that his living heat pack has moved.</p><p>“Because they’re a part of you. Who you are and where you’ve been.”</p><p>Grimmjow scoffs, the quiet derision that’s supposed to mean Ichigo is full of shit, but they both  know it’s the unspoken noise of defeat. When Ichigo has said or done something that Grimmjow can’t say no to.</p><p>He’s sitting up now, practically hovering over Grimmjow who’s staring up at him with blooming pupils, just the barest hint of blue. Ichigo presses two fingers to the top of the scar that starts at his collarbone and presses, just the tiniest bit of pressure. He tries to ignore the way Grimmjow’s eyes flutter closed for a moment because it’s stupidly distracting and he’s on a <em>mission. </em></p><p>“Guess I don’t have to ask about this one,” he murmurs, leaning down swiftly to press a kiss just below his fingers.</p><p>“Bastard,” Grimmjow grumbles, but it’s hard to miss the edge of fond adoration beneath the flimsy complaint.</p><p>Ichigo surges up to press a kiss to his lips, a reward for humoring him, but Ichigo has to catch Grimmjow’s now freed arm that comes swinging up to hold him down like an iron bar. Given his way, Grimmjow would keep him right there and Ichigo would be hard-pressed to resist. So, he presses Grimmjow’s arm back down to the bed, weathers the disappointed scowl that gets leveled at him, and returns to the expanse of skin all laid out beneath him.</p><p>He trails his fingers down the length of the scar he gouged into Grimmjow himself during the first fateful meeting, and continues to ignore the bass growl building in the back of Grimmjow’s throat. Ichigo deviates from his path to a thin scar sitting between two ribs on the right side of his chest. “What about this one?” he murmurs, darting a glance up to find Grimmjow smoldering down the length of his nose at him.</p><p>“That weird fucker, Szayel. Wanted a ‘specimen sample’ or something, tried to gut me.” He shrugs as Ichigo shoots him a concerned look. “Would like to shake the hand of whoever offed him.”</p><p>“An even weirder Shinigami Captain with zero morals,” Ichigo informs him and Grimmjow frowns, lip curling in dissatisfaction.</p><p>“Circle of life, I guess.”</p><p>Leaning in quickly, he presses a brief kiss to the scar and catches Grimmjow’s hand before it can plow into his hair and drag him back up. He returns it to the bed once more and moves down a little further, moving to throw a leg over Grimmjow so he’s straddling him, one hand flat on the mattress for support. Grimmjow just about jackknifes up, the smolder in his gaze having kindled into a full blaze once more. But Ichigo puts his palm to his forehead and drives his head back down to the pillow with a soft thump.</p><p>“I’m not done,” he mutters with a mildly maniacal grin as Grimmjow groans, tipping his head back until the tendons of his neck stand taut, like he’s being tortured.</p><p>“I fuckin’ swear, you’re gonna pay for this.”</p><p>There are a few scars scattered here and there across his torso, small nicks and cuts from battles Grimmjow can’t remember, though he seems to genuinely try for Ichigo’s sake. The crowning jewel of his chest though, save for the void punched through his guts, really is the scar Ichigo gave him, the one he saved <em>just because.</em> Ichigo spots a scar peeking out of the boxers —<em>his boxer</em>s— that Grimmjow is wearing, following the V of his hip.</p><p>Ichigo holds his blown-pupil gaze as he drags a finger down it, pulling the waistband down with him, but the scar is short and ends just below the edge of the waistband. He holds the fabric back and dips his head again to press another kiss to the swell of muscle at his hip.  “And this one?” he murmurs into warm skin.</p><p>“Until you <em>cry. </em>I swear, I’m gonna fuck yo—” Ichigo snaps the waistband back against Grimmjow’s skin, effectively cutting him off. He crooks an eyebrow up in expectation, waiting silently as a vein pops a little at Grimmjow’s temple. “Ulquoirra, trying to teach me a lesson on Aizen’s behalf.”</p><p>Satisfied, Ichigo moves away, over to the other hip, lets his finger ghost over <em>his</em> scar, before running his hand down a sharp hipbone. There’s a swath of silvery discoloration on the crest of Grimmjow’s outer left thigh that looks a lot like a burn scar. “A gift from your other mask wearing pal,” he fesses up without having to be prompted and Ichigo grimaces a little. He remembers that fight, his hands skewered to the asphalt by Grimmjow’s sword as Shinji had swooped in to literally save his neck.</p><p>Continuing down his pale thigh, kneading the muscle there, over his knee and down his calf. Ichigo is enjoying this <em>immensely, </em>for both the backstory and all the teasing, but he knows there’s gonna be absolute <em>hell</em> to pay when he was done and Grimmjow was surely going to collect. There’s the palest cuff of scar tissue that wraps all the way around Grimmjow’s left ankle. Something long healed but deep enough to have left a divot in his skin, the faintest of slopes. Ichigo sits up and stares down at it, moving his fingers away so he can see it properly, cocking his head to the side in curiosity. What could have made that he wonders.</p><p>“For fuck’s sake, Kurosaki. Get up here,” Grimmjow all but growls under his breath as Ichigo wraps his fingers around Grimmjow’s ankle again, around the scar. He looks to the other leg beside him and sees precisely the same marks.</p><p>“What are these from?”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Grimmjow bites out and when Ichigo looks up at him again, he’s staring out the window, at the rain still coming down steadily. Oh, he didn’t like that answer at all. “When I thought shit was going South, I didn’t think it would be this far South,” Grimmjow gripes as Ichigo practically shimmies down the length of his body until he’s balancing on his toes at the edge of the bed.</p><p>He grabs ahold of Grimmjow’s calf, ignores the way Grimmjow purposefully jerks back so he can put his whole, corpse-cold foot flat against Ichigo’s sternum because he's a royal asshole. It’s worth the goosebumps from Grimmjow’s weirdly delicate bare toes curling against his chest so he can look at the scar up close. It really is so faded from healing, old and indistinct with time, but Ichigo swears as he drags his index finger around oval shapes one after the other that the pattern is horrifyingly familiar.</p><p>“Is this—” he starts to say and has to stop because a rush of acid is burning in his chest. “Are these from <em>chains</em>?”</p><p>He looks up at Grimmjow who’s still staring at him, pupils much smaller now, more icy blue gazing back than before. “I said it doesn’t matter anymore.”</p><p>“I—” Ichigo feels like his brain is short circuiting, eyes jumping from Grimmjow’s and back to his ankle. “Do you have these on your wrists too?!”</p><p>He lets go of the toned calf, shoving it away, and diving for Grimmjow’s arm, the one that isn’t curled behind his head. The delicate bones of his wrist, long fingers, neat nails, nothing but pale, unmarred skin. He stares at it, dumbfounded.</p><p>“What is happening…” Ichigo mutters while Grimmjow stares at him, expression calling him a dumb bitch in six different ways.</p><p>Slowly, begrudgingly, Grimmjow withdraws his other arm from under the pillow and holds it out for inspection. Ichigo grips his forearm like he’s afraid Grimmjow intends to clock him in the nose, but Grimmjow just lets him hold it. And there they are. Faded loop after loop, braceleting the pale skin of Grimmjow’s right wrist.</p><p>“Are you shitting me?” Ichigo whispers, horrified. “How the hell have I never noticed this before?”</p><p>Grimmjow has the audacity, the absolute hierro strengthened titanium balls, to simply shrug. “Dunno, I barely remember they’re there anymore.”</p><p>“D-did Aizen do this to you?” he asks low and slow, looking back up at Grimmjow. He’s still got his head flat on the pillow, staring up with a narrowed, searching gaze, looking for something.</p><p>Pity, of course, he’s looking for the pity in Ichigo's unblinking stare. He won’t find any: Ichigo learned long ago, the hard way, to keep the pity off his face even if he was feeling it. “Aizen had a particular brand of fuckery for breaking each of us.”</p><p>Ichigo’s diaphragm feels like it opens like a trick trapdoor, heart plummeting at the rush of mental images that statement brings on. His blood feels like paint in his veins, throat like someone’s been funneling glass down it as he swallows. “<em>He chained you up</em>?”</p><p>“Like a dog,” Grimmjow says, and as he says it, he grins, feral and wide, endearing dimple tucked in the one bare cheek. <em>As if he’s proud of it.</em></p><p>Ichigo sits down with a huff, bed creaking under the sudden movement, hand still loosely holding Grimmjow’s wrist, marred with the scars of his former commander.</p><p>No, Ichigo can’t even call Aizen that. Aizen was never Grimmjow’s <em>anything</em>. Never a commander, never a master of his soul, <em>nothing</em>. And the scars that marked all but one of his limbs, the only blank one being the arm that Orihime rejected back into existence, he realizes too late and with another rush of bile up his throat. They were just the healed evidence that Grimmjow had fought Aizen tooth and claw, enough to have to be restrained long enough to wear past his hierro again and again and <em>again</em>. Enough to scar an Arrancar permanently.</p><p>“Wh-what do you mean ‘broke you’?” Ichigo demands, the cold rage in his chest his own and very much not his own simultaneously.</p><p>“Fucking hell, Kurosaki,” he says with a dramatic roll of his eyes as if this conversation was strictly <em>casual</em>. Like they were discussing the possibility of the rain stopping later. “Submit or <em>die</em> is a convincing ultimatum, your stupid ass withstanding.”</p><p>Grimmjow’s hand is palm up in his own, Ichigo cradling it, running his thumb over the interlocking loops just over the delicate bones of the underside of his wrist, the blue of his veins visible against his pale skin. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the sixth, the embodiment of destruction, the most difficult opponent he’s ever faced, Ichigo’s— well, his <em>something.</em> With veins as blue as any human, skin that seemed as vulnerable as anyone else’s (but certainly wasn’t if Ichigo’s failed crusade to suck a bruise into Grimmjow’s neck was anything to go by). Strong, brash, all bluster and bloodlust and calculating brilliance. It was hard to imagine anyone, even Aizen, chaining up something like that, <em>breaking</em> something like that.</p><p>“Hey,” he murmurs softly but Ichigo is still staring, trying not to think about <em>what it must have been like</em> and failing spectacularly. Chained where? To what? Did Aizen starve him? Abuse him? How long was he chained up like that? “<em>Hey.</em>”</p><p>“Only one of us is chained up for all eternity, and knowing that is better than any fuckin’ revenge I could have tried to take.”</p><p>Ichigo stares down at him, studies the relaxed line of his broad shoulders, the way his one hand remains at his side, the other motionless, still cradled in Ichigo’s own. His hair blue as a summer day in Karakura, the way it lays almost bedraggled on the pillow, the long strands straggling across his forehead. The subtle arch of his brows as he quirks them up at Ichigo expectantly. The jawbone secured to his cheek, fanged teeth illuminated from the window. And his eyes, <em>his eyes</em>, the same frigid blue of a glacier. Ichigo could have found him in the dark, blindfolded and deafened. He could have picked him out of a crowd of imposturous illusions. He could have found that gaze in a sea of blue eyes, like he’d always known them. It makes his chest feel tight, like someone’s wringing his heart out.</p><p>“I get to do this shit to you now too, right?” Grimmjow doesn’t wait for permission, yanking Ichigo back down, directly into the spot that he vacates so he can loom over. Ichigo should be used to getting looked at like he’s something to devour, all things Grimmjow considered, but it still sends a thrill weaving through his guts.</p><p>“Honestly, I don’t think I have many scars. Courtesy of Orihime,” he says even as Grimmjow’s calloused fingers find the edge of his own boxers.</p><p>Grimmjow grins, sharp and dangerous, eyes glittering in the rain-dimmed streetlight filtering in through his bedroom window. “Oh, I’ll be <em>very</em> thorough.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on Twitter acting a fool on the regular <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/sayhitoforeverr">here</a><br/>Join the GrimmIchi Discord <a href="https://discord.gg/kk8MvvqG4U">here!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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